Photography Friday: Dr. Fernando and Quincy Car

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Britt

Here in North Carolina, Dr. Fernando Cardenas and his stallion, Quincy Car, are something of local heroes. They compete at the highest levels of showjumping, and even represented Colombia in the most recent Pan Am games, qualifying them for a trip to Rio.

So it was definitely quite the honor to have them in front of my camera. This was my second shoot with a stallion, and Quincy was fit as a fiddle and just as shiny and conditioned as a horse ever could be.

While I was there, Fernando’s sweet family also joined in on the fun, rounding out a field of highly photogenic subjects!

I mean really, how sweet is this??

The other addition to our shoot was a recent import from Denmark, and the latest addition to the 3H team. Calvin is a hunk of a guy, and I definitely couldn’t leave without snagging a couple portraits just of him!

This was a very exciting session for me, and a real treat. Here’s wishing the Cardenas family lots of luck as they compete in Wellington this season!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Smitty Accomplishments

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Britt

I have now owned Smitty for over 6 months, and considering how baby he is, we still have a few accomplishments we can tack on a list.

We stand in the cross ties quietly (a very recent addition to the list)

trying to get a conformation photo, and failing

He can pick up all 4 feet for you, and be a solid citizen for the farrier

Smitty learned to walk across a bridge

And go through water

And lunge (mostly) off of voice commands

though sometimes going forward takes encouragement

And we went to our first show and didn’t die

What a roller coaster of a 6 months it has been!!

Broadening the Photography Horizons – A survey of readers

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Britt

2016 sessions

As I shared at the beginning of the month, one of my major goals for this year is to grow my photography business. I’m attacking this aspiration with a vengeance- I revamped my portfolio website (though still a WIP) to reflect my photography centric mission, and tried to include some pricing and examples of my work that I feel like speak most for my brand.

It seems like I’m not alone in this endeavor, however, and a little part of me has lost courage after seeing my local market flooded with other people offering similar services, but at a cost that to me, wouldn’t even cover the gas and time costs at a minimum. Marketing is not my strong-suit, admittedly, so I would love to reach out to you all for feedback.

Since most of my readers are equestrians, and equestrians, especially those active in their local communities and on social media, are my target audience, I would love to pick y’all’s brains. If you have a few minutes, would you, kind reader, be willing to answer a few questions regarding equestrian photography?

If you filled out the survey, thank you, I really appreciate it. If you have other points you would like to discuss (such as pricing, your own experiences, etc), or even better, you want to talk about doing a shoot with your horse a 1,000 of your closest friends (hey, a girl can dream, right?), please shoot me a note at brittwgillis at gmail dot com.

Next weekend my plan is to head off to sunny Ocala, to visit a friend who is a working student there, and then to spectate and schmooze with the fancy folk (from afar, of course) at the Wellington Eventing Showcase. While I’m there I also hope to do a couple portrait sessions, namely highlighting my friend’s bee-yutiful Irish Sport Horse gelding. And who knows where my photography will go from there!

Freejumping Smitty

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Britt

Free jumping a horse is a great way to not only assess their ability, but also to allow him to work on technique or footwork without the effort of balancing a rider at the same time.

Despite Smitty being jumper-bred on his dam side, I had yet to see him over anything of size. Below 2’6″, he really doesn’t have to put much effort into clearing the fence, and 18″ fences? Well:

Smitty not trying over the baby fence

So we set up a small grid to see what would happen. Our set up was thus: a ground pole to a cross rail, then 18′ to an ascending oxer.

Smitty was surprisingly relaxed through the whole thing, and it was clear that the final height of roughly 3’7″ (or 3’9″? we didn’t measure) was no big deal. To encourage him to fold his lower legs next time I would like to add a landing pole, and begin to increase the width of the oxer. But overall, I felt like it was an exciting way to see the baby’s potential!

Let’s Discuss: Your Equestrian Affiliations

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Britt

This Saturday I had the pleasure of photographing the North Carolina Dressage and Combined Training Association’s annual gala. My responsibility was to photograph all of the award winners and snap up some great candid moments in between.

When I wasn’t behind the camera though, I got to chat with lots of familiar faces and even met a reader of the blog (hi Jessica!). The NCDCTA is an organization that feels like home to me, even though I haven’t officially been a member for a couple years now (because of, you know, not having a horse to compete).

In years past there were other organizations that gave me the warm fuzzies. One being the NCSU Dressage team, which will always have a place in my heart for the friends and associations it brought me.

Dressage girls know all about balance and creating a solid foundation 😉

The other is likely Mecklenburg Hounds, who I foxhunted with for many years. Beyond meeting up at the hunt field, I was an active participant in other association events, such as parades, fundraisers, etc.

July 4th Parade with Tanner and the Mecklenburg Hounds

There are plenty of other organizations that I am a part of, but I admit, mostly my membership comes down to rules and regulations. The USEF is one, and more recently, the USEA. While I wish to have a greater sense of awareness for what these organizations are doing and how I can get involved, I find that it’s simply easier to get involved at a more local level.

What equestrian organizations are you affiliated with? Which are close to your heart, and how do you actively participate in them? How do you think the national level entities can inspire more local participation? Has an organization ever done something that made you want to leave, or were there ever inspiring events that made you want to join a certain ‘club’?

Photography Friday: Worth a Shot Farm

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Britt

I met the owner of Worth a Shot farm last summer during my horse shopping adventures. My vet insisted I go see a lovely gelding she has, and I admit, if it weren’t that he was an unbroken 2 year old, I would have snapped him up in a heartbeat. But besides my drooling over the horse, I also got to meet the farm’s other inhabitants. The farm proprietor also happens to breed beautiful Cane Corso dogs along with stunning warmbloods. One of her herd is the country’s lone passported silver dapple warmblood stallion, and despite being just a baby he’s quite the eye-catcher! So when the owner offered to help me with some trailer loading work with Smitty, I was keen to pay her back in photographs- and these are the results!

As I continue to grow my photography business, I hope to offer more and more of these black background shots. The silver dapple was an interesting color to photograph, as it is so rich and contrasts dramatically with that blonde mane and tail- and I hope to go back in the fall when this fella’s coat is even more dapply and extreme!

Have a great weekend, y’all!

The Relationship Phases of New Horse Ownership

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Britt

With horses, just like humans, it seems the first year of a relationship is critical to determining whether it will endure in the long term.

You go through this exciting honeymoon phase and often, discovering quirks and idiosyncrasies is charming and helps to create a sense of connection. Maybe it’s playing with the crossties (which I’m a sucker for), or finding out that your new pony just loves his ears to be rubbed. It’s all sweet, and endearing, and you just can’t help but get googly eyes when you set eyes on them. For Smitty and I, the highlight of our honeymoon period was our cross country school, in which I basically decided he was the best baby, ever.

And then you hit that phase where you know each other a little better, and have a tiny foundation on which you can build trust and start to grow. Sometimes this is an extension of the initial honeymoon phase, and all continues to be bright and beautiful as you take on new challenges and add shared accomplishments to your relationship history. Or maybe this is where you start to test each other’s boundaries, introducing your first fight into the mix. For us, this was the show in October. Success in so many ways, and yet, a few moments where the rose colored glasses became just a tish foggy.

Shortly after that, I sent him off the bootcamp, which in hindsight I wish I hadn’t done because I believe it lead, in part, to his unhappy stomach shortly thereafter. Here we enter another phase in our relationship, which is the general ups and downs of trying to figure out each other’s limits, make progress, and see if we will be a team in the long run.

Ulcers. UGH.

I’ve always heard it takes a full year to really form a partnership with a new horse, and is history is any indication, I believe that’s true. Smitty and I are next yet halfway to that marker yet, and we have so much to work through if we are going to be a permanent fixture. Yet I think in a lot of ways that just how horse, and human, relationships are. It’s a non-linear progression towards a forever shifting end goal.

Let’s Discuss: What’s your range?

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Britt

Last week we discussed ponies versus horses, and both the cultural and sometimes ruling limitations that stop ponies from being more popular in the english disciplines. So today I’d like to ask the more personal question- what is your perfect size, and why?

Ivan and Foster were both 16.2h and uphill, and Smitty is fitting right into that category and will likely get much bigger. While it’s a lot easier to market a larger horse, I’m finding his constant growth (.5″ from September to December) a little disconcerting.

Already more like wrangling a giraffe at 16.2h | PC: Studio in the Stable

When I was horse shopping, I was looking at anything from 15.2h to 16.2h, though there were exceptions of course. I really quite like riding the shorter guys, in fact, and if I didn’t want to jump I’m probably stick to something 15.2 or 15.3h tall.

A 17h horse I tried in KY…

…. and a 15.2h pony from the same day

For me, I prefer to jump something a little bit taller than 15.1-15.2 hands simply because the fences look smaller from a bigger horse, and my balls went MIA a long, long time ago. Otherwise, I feel like my leg is ok on a variety of horses and would be open to a more vertically challenged prospect.

XC schooling baby Smitty

What about you? What is your acceptable range in a mount? How does your chosen discipline affect your preferences?

Branding the Equestrian Business

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Britt

Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa. – Jay Baer

All businesses and organizations can benefit from thinking about brand, since really, brand is the totality of how you/it/they are represented in the world. It’s feelings and visuals and messages all rolled into a ball.

The USEF just released their new branding, which includes a new logo, revamped website, and more. By changing their name to US Equestrian, they now feel like a more personal organization with an emotional tie to its members, rather than simply a governing body. To emphasize their new, friendlier, approachable brand they also rolled out a campaign they call “the Joy of Horse Sports”, featuring feel-good imagery highlighting the bond between horse and rider.

Old versus new logo

Branding is something I’m required to think about on a daily basis, since it’s part of my job. And I love it- branding is a mix of design and psychology that ticks off my greatest educational interests in college, and though it is exceptionally challenging to create a brand from scratch, building recognition through branding efforts is also exceptionally rewarding as well. It took me ages to come up with my own logo (always hardest designing for yourself!), but eventually settled on this design, which emulates my simple visual aesthetic. The circle hints at the aperture of a camera lens, but isn’t specific enough to discount the other types of design work I do- anything from wedding invitations to, you guessed it, logo design.

My own branding illustrated on my business cards

Recently I entered a logo competition hosted by The $900 Facebook Pony, and was thrilled to learn that they chose my logo as the winning entry.

If you ever hire a designer for an identity project (or work on one yourself!), you know that the process of developing your visual identity is deeply personal. Not only do you want to somehow sum up the emotional values that make up you/your business of the present, but you also want to represent the aspirations you have for the future. Whether your goals are to become a household name, or the local go-to spot, a cohesive brand identity will never hold you back.

For the bloggers out there- what elements have you focused on to create your brand? How does your visual identity tie back to you? Does it use your eventing colors? Wedding colors? Did you make font choices or even naming decisions when you first created your blog/business/facebook page/etc. What branding challenges have you faced, in the past or currently?

Photography Friday: Olympia

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Britt

Olympia was for me, the event of a lifetime, and a memory I will never forget. The equine performers and competitors were absolutely top-notch, and getting to see some of the world’s best showjumpers warm up, up close, was enlightening and inspiring.

My camera was my only companion for the night, though I did make some acquaintances while in the more personal viewing area at the warm up. But despite being alone, the entertainment was enough that really I didn’t mind.

You can see I was quite struck with this particular act, the Stallions of Portugal. The dressage and riding in this segment was really impressive, combined with lighting effects and an excellent soundtrack- well, what’s not to love?

Most of the images I took in the warm up ring you will have seen by now in a former post, but here are a couple more worth sharing.

Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful weekend! I’m doing two photoshoots (assuming the weather cooperates) that I am super excited about, and I can’t wait to share them with you all!